l’azile

Seems like only yesterday, I was blogging about the possible end to the Community Access Program (CAP) and its Youth Initiatives, which provide affordable access to the Internet and training programs for disadvantaged populations in Canada. But actually, I first wrote about the Community Access Program way back in 2007.

And as I write these words tonight, I realize there is a reason why this feels so fresh and that is because this is the story every year, or so it seems. Every year, the federal government threatens to cut the program and every year, numerous communities in Canada mobilize and bring the program back from the brink. For example, see Michael Geist’s blog post on the subject from March 2010.

So it is the story again this year and I hope you will all do what you can to support the various initiatives working towards ensuring the survival of this crucial program. Write to the Prime Minister and Tony Clement, Industry Canada minister responsible for this program. Write to your Member of Parliament, to your mayor and to anyone else you think can help make a difference.

The good folks at Internet for Everyone, spearheaded by the awesome Communautique, have made things easy for you by even enabling you to write to all these people with a simple click of your mouse (or whatever other device you use). So you see, you really have no excuse not to take a few minutes to support this initiative.

Go! Mobilize! Save the CAP!

Disclaimer: Any views expressed in the following article are my own and, as far as I know, do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations I am affiliated with.

If you blinked, you may have missed the amended judgment in the Jodhan case, rendered February 09 2011 following the Government of Canada’s motion for reconsideration filed last December. That motion came shortly after the initial ruling in the case which awarded victory to Ms. Donna Jodhan, a blind woman who sued the government for the lack of accessibility of federal government websites.

The November 29 2010 ruling stipulated, among other things, that the Government of Canada had indeed violated Ms. Jodhan’s Charter rights by failing to monitor the application of its own web standards, the Common Look and Feel standards (CLF), which contain a number of accessibility requirements to ensure “equitable access to all content on Government of Canada websites“. The ruling also declared that the government has a constitutional obligation to bring itself into compliance with the Charter within 15 months.

Continue reading amended judgment in the Jodhan case

This is a post I wrote last April 2010 at the height of the whole #a11y vs. #AxS debate that gripped the Accessibility community on twitter at the time. The plan was to chime in, to make it clear what I thought about this whole thing and why I feel the way I do. Note that a large part of the contents of this post were taken, with some adjustments, from an email I wrote to a dear friend at the time. Indeed, I had decided to stop tweeting about it and to write an email, not because I did not want to discuss this subject publicly but because I felt that this was not a discussion that could be well served 140 characters at a time.

And then I thought I should probably commit to collective memory my perspective on the issue and write a blog post about it. But obviously, I never published the article because I kind of got tired of the whole subject and decided to just do my own thing. But, I was called out on this issue again today so I think it will just be easier to post the gawd damn thing and have it over with.

So anyway, last April on twitter, it was proposed that people start using the #AxS (as in “access”) hashtag in lieu of the #a11y (as in “accessibility”) hashtag (see John Foliot’s blog post on the story for more background). My impression is that the primary motivation here was to gain 1 character in tweets. And it seems to me that every other argument was secondary to the goal which, again, was to gain 1 character in tweets. So, lets have a look at some of these arguments[2].

Continue reading a11y cat[1]

Nos cousins français ont décidé de prendre les grands moyens afin d’inciter le gouvernement de la France à respecter ses obligations en matière d’accessibilité numérique de l’État. Le 28 janvier dernier, plusieurs acteurs du Web en France ont diffusé une lettre ouverte sommant le gouvernment de s’activer et de poser des gestes concrets pour s’assurer que les objectifs fixés par la loi du 11 février 2005 soient atteints dans les délais prescrits.

Cette lettre ouverte fait donc le point à mi-parcours sur l’application de l’article 47 de la loi, qui oblige les services en ligne de l’État, des collectivités territoriales et des établissements publics qui en dépendent à être accessibles.

Le décret d’application de cet article, paru le 14 mai 2009, impose un délai de trois ans (ramené à deux pour les services en ligne de l’État) pour la mise en conformité. Or, comme le relate mon estimé homologue Victor Brito, « en ce début d’année 2011, force est de constater qu’il y a encore du pain sur la planche et le constat est sans appel : la très grande majorité des services de communication publique en ligne des services de l’État et des collectivités territoriales restent aujourd’hui inaccessibles aux personnes handicapées ».

Continue reading le collectif « Article 47 » pour l’accessibilité numérique des services publics français

As I mentioned briefly in an update to my January 1 post on the Jodhan ruling, the federal government has filed an appeal in addition to their motion for reconsideration. Apparently, an appeal on a protective basis was filed on December 29 2010, giving the government an extra ten days to appeal the November 29 decision and the appeal itself was then filed on January 7 2011.

This information took a while to become public (probably, as the court officer I spoke to speculated, because it lay around on someone’s desk for a while). Anyway, I have since received a copy of the government appeal that I am reproducing in its entirety hereafter (it is not available online but it is public).

Continue reading overkill: Canadian government files appeal in the Jodhan case

Update: Since the publication of this post, the Government of Canada has filed an appeal in addition to the motion for reconsideration. From what I understand, an appeal on a protective basis was filed on December 29 2010, giving the government an extra ten days to appeal the November 29 decision and the appeal itself was then filed on January 7 2011. This information took a while to be published on the Court Index and Docket website and I was only made aware of these developments on January 10 so please keep this in mind while reading this post. These developments do not however change the opinions expressed herein. I will try to write a follow-up soon. (CR - 11-01-2011)

Disclaimer: I want to make absolutely clear that any views expressed in the following article are my own and, as far as I know, do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations I am affiliated with. Also, I know a lot of individuals who work in government and the following views are not in any way a judgment on their commitment and their work. Finally, I am not a lawyer. And I do not play one on TV.

For the last month or so, many people in Canada had been waiting to find out whether or not the Canadian government would appeal the decision in the case of Donna Jodhan v. the Attorney General of Canada. The Government of Canada had 30 days to appeal the judgment rendered by the Honourable Justice Kelen on November 29. On that day, the Judge essentially ruled that the inaccessibility of federal government websites is a violation of Article 15 (1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as it constitutes discrimination based on disability towards Ms. Jodhan and others with visual impairments. The ruling further stated that the Canadian government had 15 months (now roughly 14 and counting down) to make its websites more accessible.

Continue reading federal government files a motion for Reconsideration in the Jodhan case

Recently, I posted a link on twitter, a youtube video, that was not very accessible to either blind or deaf people. It is the kind of material that makes particular use of those two senses: vision and hearing. Of course, with proper captions for the deaf and audio descriptions for the blind, it could be much more accessible. But unfortunately, that was not the case. I came across this link reading someone’s blog and being a cat person myself, I totally tripped out on this video and had to share it. And even knowing that some people in my twitter stream would not have access to the whole experience, as someone who sees and hears without much difficulty, I posted it anyway.

Continue reading the thin accessibility line

The Community Access Program and its Youth Initiative, which provide affordable access to the Internet and training programs for disadvantaged populations in Canada, are in grave danger of disappearing. If you care about public access to the Internet (and you should), please write to Industry Canada’s minister Jim Prentice (ministre.industrie@ic.gc.ca), the Prime Minister of Canada (pm@pm.gc.ca), your Member of Parliament and your local mayor and tell them.

For more information, see the full press release below.

Le Programme d’accès communautaire à Internet et son Initiative Jeunesse, qui permettent l’accès abordable à Internet et offrent des programmes de formation aux populations desavantagées au Canada, sont en grand danger de disparaître. Si vous tenez à l’accès public à Internet (et vous devriez), écrivez au ministre d’Industrie Canada Jim Prentice (ministre.industrie@ic.gc.ca) ainsi qu’au Premier Ministre du Canada (pm@pm.gc.ca), votre député et votre maire et dites-leur.

Pour plus d’informations, veuillez consulter le communiqué de presse ici-bas.

Continue reading the end of public access?/la fin de l’accès public ?